Premium subscription price update (June 1st)

[User Already Exists]

I agree that the price is still very good, but this is from your previous FAQ about the last raise:

You will subscribe with the current price (24$ annually, or 4$ each month), and you will keep these prices after the November 1st price update, as long as you do not cancel your membership.

as long as you do not cancel your membership

I have to say that BGA was a company that I trusted and now you are going back on your word. If you make a statement like that to guarantee people keep subscribing and then go back on what you said, it is dishonorable.

You get even worse by blaming the mistake on a your "Italian translator"

I've already paid up, but I'm not sure you'll be getting my business come the next renewal.

In fairness, although BGA is run by French people who don't always speak English perfectly, the phrase "as long as" has a dictionary definition, and it means "provided that" or "inasmuch as". https://www.merriam-webster.com/diction ... 0long%20as At the time it was written, I did read the original sentence the way it was apparently intended: They would raise the prices on November 1, 2021, but the prices of existing subscribers would not be raised on November 1, provided that they do not cancel their subscription prior to November 1. Incidentally, had the phrase been "for as long as", the meaning would have been entirely different, namely a promise that they would never raise the price for existing subscribers at all, ever, in the future.

I'm not so offended that the prices are going up, but I am a bit disappointed that they went up by 44% in just 2 years. That seems excessive. No matter if the site has 100 or 800 games, I am only playing one of them, and I do not use any premium features. Also, all the games are developed by unpaid volunteers (myself included), so the large number of games only indirectly justifies the price increase (only insofar as more technical support is needed). On the other hand, it appears that the site still remains entirely free to non-premium users (fingers crossed?) Luckily for me, my membership renews in May, so I am still getting the old price for another year. After that, I might go non-premium for a while, and basically just have a premium membership every other year, if I want to keep supporting BGA at more or less the same level.

[paramesis]

... Also, all the games are developed by unpaid volunteers (myself included)...

This is not true. A significant number of games on this site are developed under contract, either with the publisher or with BGA itself.

[Waikirikiri]

.....
But I still dont understand how can people really think that prices would never go up forever ?? Again, you can be mad that the two increases are quite close to each other, but thinking that you can keep a steady price no matter how the service/world evolve ? That's just delusional IMO.

Prices can be held if you grow your market, increase your number of subscribers.

To grow your market you need both new games and improvements to your existing games.

Many users are asking for "undo" functionality in games that don't have but should have that functionality. These requests are being ignored while more new games are added.

Improve your existing games to maintain your current users BGA is not doing this.

The size of the increase surprised and disappointed me.
I don't know if I will continue as a premium subscriber.
Fix the bugs in a timely responsive functionality and respond to user requests.

[_Kex_]

But I still dont understand how can people really think that prices would never go up forever ??

I don't understand how you fail to understand a simple concept like "as long as".
Did we expect the prices to stay the same forever? - No
Did we expect the prices to stay the same forever for those who took the "as long as you continue paying it will stay the same"? - Yes
because it says so

the "well, you know, we didn't mean it like that" explanation is just plain offensive.

BGA needed a steady reliable income at one point in exchange for a fixed annual price. And we took it.
To play "whoopsies" now is highly unprofessional.

Make any new deal with the new subscribers as you want. As long as they agree to the terms it's their choice. We had a choice and we took it. And we expect you to honour it.

[Tisaac]

.....
But I still dont understand how can people really think that prices would never go up forever ?? Again, you can be mad that the two increases are quite close to each other, but thinking that you can keep a steady price no matter how the service/world evolve ? That's just delusional IMO.

Prices can be held if you grow your market, increase your number of subscribers.

To grow your market you need both new games and improvements to your existing games.

You are missing a point that was explained in the announcement : there are more new games involving money than before (basically all the games in the list lordlax gave were done by freelance developpers). More paid developpers for higher quality games means that the costs are non constants.
And I think you underestimate the cost of fixing bugs or adding new functionnality to existing games. The games were made by 100's different devs (which are not BGA devs who are working on the main site), and it's extremely hard to fix something in someone else's code base, most of the case completely undocumented. The premium subscription would need to increase by a lot more if you wanted to hire enough people from BGA to fix bugs or improve stuff on the existing 500 games, for a really small benefit since usually these games are less played than the new more popular ones (just look at the audience).
So instead the BGA team ensure that for popular games, the new adaptations have a good quality by paying developpers instead of relying on volunteers, so yes, that implies more cost.

[Duterte]

the extra trashy thing about this whole episode is that my 'subscription' would have been auto-renewed at the 'subscription' price, but since my card number changed, suddenly now my 'subscription' cannot be renewed & I need to create a new one. that's a great way to annoy people

[Zordac]

Sadly in my country the increase is more than 100%... I'm going from R$96 to R$215, what the hell ?!
[...]

In BRL the increase is way more important than in the other currencies because of the EUR/BRL exchange rates (as you know). Unfortunately there is nothing we can do about this, as we have to keep our prices coherent in the different countries/currencies.

This statement made me quite angry. So when it is of advantage for you you keep prices coherent, but in case it is not of your advantage you ignore coherence.

Being in Switzerland I received:
We wanted to let you know that starting on June 1, 2023, we will be making a change to our pricing offer. Specifically, the price of an annual subscription to Board Game Arena will increase from 34,8CHF to 42CHF. The monthly price will remain the same, at 5,9CHF per month. The pricing offer will apply to all renewals (both monthly and annual) after that date.

With the value of the Swiss Franc since more than a year being equal or higher than the Euro and against the Dollar even longer, I ask myself why I should pay the equivalent of 47 USD, while for americans it's 36$? Why do a have to pay a 30% extra fee for being in Switzerland (or nearly 20% when compared to Euro)?

[Waikirikiri]

.....
But I still dont understand how can people really think that prices would never go up forever ?? Again, you can be mad that the two increases are quite close to each other, but thinking that you can keep a steady price no matter how the service/world evolve ? That's just delusional IMO.

Prices can be held if you grow your market, increase your number of subscribers.

To grow your market you need both new games and improvements to your existing games.

You are missing a point that was explained in the announcement : there are more new games involving money than before (basically all the games in the list lordlax gave were done by freelance developpers). More paid developpers for higher quality games means that the costs are non constants.
And I think you underestimate the cost of fixing bugs or adding new functionnality to existing games. The games were made by 100's different devs (which are not BGA devs who are working on the main site), and it's extremely hard to fix something in someone else's code base, most of the case completely undocumented. The premium subscription would need to increase by a lot more if you wanted to hire enough people from BGA to fix bugs or improve stuff on the existing 500 games, for a really small benefit since usually these games are less played than the new more popular ones (just look at the audience).
So instead the BGA team ensure that for popular games, the new adaptations have a good quality by paying developpers instead of relying on volunteers, so yes, that implies more cost.

No I didn't miss your point. More games have been added that I have no interest in playing and don't really want to pay for.
No new or extra value to/for me has been added at all and yet BGA wants to charge me for it.

You missed my points.
I would pay more if the games I do play were better serviced, bugs were fixed more promptly. reasonable enhancement requests were accepted and implemented. This isn't happening as far as I can see.

In addition, recently the games seem to be running more slowly, I nearly timeout yesterday because the server(s) wouldn't play my moves.
More games means more load on servers. Fewer better implemented games would be better in my humble opinion.

The owners appear to be using this platform as a means to promote their games and have me pay for it.

[jerel]

Yeah, I'm not thrilled with this. I like BGA, and was told $15 forever at some point, and now I find out I've been paying $30 and it will go up to $36/yr? That's a 200% increase that I didn't know was happening, then a 20% increase on top of that. Very, very steep increases.

I like BGA a lot, and want to support y'all, but I generally won't tolerate this kind of behavior from a vendor. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to decide if I will stop my next renewal or not. Unfortunately, I am leaning in that direction for the reasons stated above.

[JustynTime]

For me, I got the living dead badge because I rarely play online. I would have swallowed my £22.80 subscription in case I want to play premium games occasionally with a friend who lives far from me, but to bump my subscription up to £33 feels a bit excessive.

As has been mentioned before, the platform could be considered an advert for games being produced and I'm paying for the privilege. There may have been a huge increase in the available games, but quantity does not always mean quality.

I have cancelled my subscription as this price hike has far exceeded the current cost of living inflationary increases. I'm sure it won't just be me, but I suspect the accountants are banking on more people accepting the increase than not.

If you're unhappy, vote with your feet. If you think it still offers value for money, then pay the inflated price...